Nulling interferometry, a powerful technique for high-resolution imaging of the close
neighbourhood of bright astrophysical objets, is currently considered for future space missions
such as Darwin or the Terrestrial Planet Finder Interferometer (TPF-I), both aiming at Earth-like
planet detection and characterization. Ground-based nulling interferometers are being studied for
both technology demonstration and scientific preparation of the Darwin/TPF-I missions through a
systematic survey of circumstellar dust disks around nearby stars. In this paper, we investigate
the influence of atmospheric turbulence on the performance of ground-based nulling instruments, and
deduce the major design guidelines for such instruments. End-to-end numerical simulations allow us
to estimate the performance of the main subsystems and thereby the actual sensitivity of the nuller
to faint exozodiacal disks. Particular attention is also given to the important question of stellar
leakage calibration. This study is illustrated in the context of GENIE, the Ground-based European
Nulling Interferometer Experiment, to be installed at the VLTI and working in the L' band. We
estimate that this instrument will detect exozodiacal clouds as faint as about 50 times the Solar
zodiacal cloud, thereby placing strong constraints on the acceptable targets for Darwin/TPF-I.

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